Trapped (D-rank)

Kinoe · 1 Trapped (D-rank) Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:04 am

Kinoe

D-rank

42

Spoiler:

During her unwilling travels across the Land of Fire and now the Land of Wind, Kinoe had come across many situations whereby the normal citizens of the village or the town she’d been living in had been unable to solve, forcing her to help in some way or watch innocent people suffer. Now, she normally had no problem watching them suffer – it wasn’t something she took pleasure in, but she herself was on the run from people, and needlessly using her abilities would just draw them to her, especially since the first few towns she visited were normally devoid of shinobi or kunoichi, and also too far out of the way to consistently depend on any of the great villages for support. They either solved their problems themselves or they depended on any kind passer-by, paying them generously for their help. It had been how Kinoe had managed to get for herself enough food, water, and shelter to last until she’d made it this far, fleeing for four years from the Haruhiko clan while abounding around the Land of Fire like a rabbit being chased by wolves. Depending on what the task was, the payment would, of course, vary but she had already been used to all manner of work – all manner of work – where some of them paid her more lucratively but were more likely to spread word of her involvement and presence than others.

Being someone on the run from a powerful clan often tended to cause one to lean away from such activities too frequently, especially when their hunters and assassins seemed to always somehow be on your tail no matter what you were able to do, who you paid to shut up, or who one personally shut up themselves. It seemed that good deeds in this world spread quickly, especially in the remote regions of the Land of Fire where villages weren’t accustomed to the touch of a shinobi or a kunoichi, instead depending on their labor as if chakra didn’t exist. Worse still, of course, was when you offered services that seemed to draw in six times the figure you normally did, but such individuals were so concerned with their pride and ego that one’s description was easily leaked to anyone being sober and knowing what to look for in the local bar.

Of course, Kinoe didn’t let this stop her from attempting some of these tasks – she did need the money to survive after all. It just caused her to lean towards the more… silent missions, ones where she wouldn’t have had to hide herself as extremely as otherwise. It often meant she also minimised the use of her chakra, sometimes just being that one very strong girl who managed to help a farmer move all his goods to the warehouse before the winter came. They weren’t always the most delicate of tasks, but the reason other people paid one to do them wasn’t because they were likeable – it was because most of these tasks were things that they themselves couldn’t be assed to do themselves, or they were tasks that these people simply didn’t have the physical capability to do.

Of course, being in the Village Hidden in the Sands was a completely different affair, in her educated opinion, however educated one might think the girl was. Being a ninja village, the Haruhiko assassins that were sent after her would be less likely to act so publicly. Of course, Kinoe always wondered why they had referred to themselves as Haruhiko’s top assassins. For one thing, she had slipped past their hands several times, raising the possibility that they were merely clan members who had volunteered to go after her in hopes of earning some form of fame within the clan for returning the woman who had crippled their heir and future head for life. Furthermore, the title of assassins was questionable, as their job description didn’t necessarily include assassinating anyone. They were simply there to bring her back. But, assassin or no, it didn’t change the fact that their actions always landed on the more questionable side of the law, meaning the wrong one, and she knew they would be less likely to risk being hunted by the authorities in a ninja village like the Village Hidden in the Sand, as such authorities would often be more than capable of dealing with them. They weren’t after all the same police who tried to go after them in a town where the cases of concern were murder, not a shinobi. No, these authorities dealt with their kind on a regular basis.

Of course, it also meant it would be more difficult for Kinoe herself to slip past the radar as she had so often relied on, but Kinoe herself couldn’t particularly count on it. She had tried that often times but the assassins had always somehow hunted her down, likely due to word of mouth of a girl with unnaturally purple hair travelling through the region, or more likely the simple city watchmen having seen her leave and being willing to part with that information on account of his life, more money, or women. Sometimes all three if she remembered the Haruhiko family well enough.

But, fortunately for her, what she was going to do now was more or less safe no matter how one looked at it. It would be a simple application of chakra in a village where the use of chakra wasn’t just the norm, but was encouraged. There would be no one spreading word of an unusual individual using chakra in the proximity, since almost all ninjas fit that bill. Furthermore, the deed she needed to perform was relatively simple, going by the sheet of paper in her hand. The mission scroll was unfurled, but as short as it was, there wasn’t much to unroll, and so the short piece of parchment floated merrily in the wind as Kinoe leapt from rooftop to rooftop, holding one end of the scroll, wrapped tightly and stuck onto a bronze rod, while the wind caused the remainder of the scroll to flap in the wind, including the bronze rod on the opposite end of the mission scroll.

Kinoe, as was mentioned, was no stranger to doing chores or tasks for others in exchange for monetary recompense. However, she could say that this mission was one of the few that she was taking in a hidden village – granted this was the first hidden village she’d stepped foot in. Despite being from the Land of Fire, she was only partially acquainted with the Land of Fire’s own village, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, and that was with their ninja. She’d ever only heard rumours of the supposedly prosperous nation, but had never seen it in person, much less set foot within its walls and taken missions for its people. As such, Sunagakure marked a milestone in her career, although one would consider it almost moot if you looked at it – Kinoe wasn’t one to keep milestones, and she wasn’t exactly an official ninja, so her ‘career’, so to speak, didn’t particularly involve these kinds of things.

It was only misfortune that had forced her hand into performing these missions and travelling from place to place, essentially becoming a ninja with her talents in ninjutsu and her need to escape swiftly and silently from her pursuers. Anyone would idly note that while she had been extremely successful with the former, she had failed utterly and painfully from the latter. Some people could be so easily bought off with money that it was almost embarrassing to be from the same species; although, that very same vulnerability that sold her off was what probably kept others from losing what was precious to them, whether it was their jobs, their loved ones, or their lives.

Kinoe ran through the mission specifics again in her mind, short as it was. The mission scroll had been an emergency submission that morning, with the messenger coming just as she entered the room, and the mission itself only halfway drafted before the person in charge had asked her to take over and relayed the rest of the mission verbally. Apparently a child had gotten stuck at the bottom of a well after being a bit too excited in his playing, and they needed someone who could be dispatched immediately. Kinoe hadn’t refused, allowing the man to once more brief her on the specifics before she set off, holding the barely complete mission scroll in her hands just as proof that she was sent by the village in case anyone opted to stop her, though no one really suspected anyone would try to stop someone from rescuing the child – mission or no, it was a good deed either way.

She arrived in just under fifteen minutes. It hadn’t been hard to find the place. Running across the rooftops, she didn’t need to be a local to spot the huge congregation of people near a well, where several men were trying to pull the child up with rope, but failing due to the child’s inability to latch onto it. She landed atop the roof of the well, immediately catching the attention of most of the people nearby, and with a simple flick of her wrist, the mission scroll was out for everyone to see. Those who were smart enough to realise that she was there to save the child backed off, while the others who were slower to register what they were seeing or were too busy trying to pull the kid out were tapped or yanked back by the other villages, clearing a small but sufficient place for Kinoe to work. She looked inside the well, noting that it was particularly dark inside but also noting that she could hear the cries of a child echoing up the stone walls of the well.

Where the people trying had failed, Kinoe easily suceeeded, using her Uzumaki chakra chains to wrap around the child and pull him up. The people around her looked awed, but there were faces of disappointment, likely much more with respect to themselves than with her. After all, they’d been trying for a good quarter of an hour to get the child out to no avail, when a random kunoichi shows up and lifts him up with little issue. Kinoe, however, was oblivious to all this, instead opting to return to the mission desk to retrieve her payment.

1778 words

750 words: Trapped
600 words: Extra 150 ryo
450 words: Reaction Time E-0 to E-3

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1 Trapped (D-rank) Wed Jan 03, 2018 2:04 am

Kinoe

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